Chiam See Tong

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The Honourable Chiam See Tong
詹时中
Chiam speaking at an election rally in 2006.
2nd Secretary-General of the Singapore People's Party
In office December 1996 – 16 October 2019[1]
Prime Minister	Goh Chok Tong (1990-2004) Lee Hsien Loong (2004-present)
Chairman	Lina Loh
Preceded by	Sin Kek Tong
Succeeded by	Steve Chia
Member of the Singapore Parliament for Potong Pasir SMC
In office 22 December 1984 – 19 April 2011
Preceded by	Howe Yoon Chong (PAP)
Succeeded by	Sitoh Yih Pin (PAP)
Constituency	Potong Pasir SMC
Majority	1,718 (11.6%)
6th and 8th Leader of the Opposition (de facto)
In office 26 May 1997 – 20 April 2006
Preceded by	Ling How Doong (SDP)
Succeeded by	Low Thia Khiang (WP)
Constituency	Potong Pasir SMC
In office 10 November 1986 – 17 May 1993
Preceded by	J. B. Jeyaretnam (WP)
Succeeded by	Ling How Doong (PAP)
Constituency	Potong Pasir SMC
1st Secretary-General of the Singapore Democratic Party
In office 6 August 1980 – 17 May 1993
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Chee Soon Juan
Personal details
Born	Chiam See Tong (1935-03-12) 12 March 1935 (age 86) Singapore, Straits Settlements
Citizenship	Singapore
Nationality	Singaporean
Other political affiliations	SPP (since 1996) SDP (1980–1996) SDA (2001-2011)
Spouse(s)	Lina Loh ​ (m. 1975)​
Children	Camilla Chiam (daughter)

Chiam See Tong (born 12 March 1935) is a Singaporean former politician from the Singapore People's Party and lawyer who represented the constituency of Potong Pasir in Parliament from 1984 to 2011 and served as the second longest-serving opposition Member of the Parliament (MP) after Low Thia Khiang. Chiam retired from politics after 39 years at the age of 80 prior to the 2015 Singaporean general election, citing health reasons.^[2][3][4]

Chiam founded the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) in 1980, after contesting the constituency of Cairnhill in 1976 as an independent candidate.^[5] He led the party up to 1996, when he left the party to join the Singapore People's Party (SPP) prior to the 1997 general election due to his falling out with fellow candidate Chee Soon Juan.^[6] He subsequently pursued the formation of the Singapore Democratic Alliance (SDA), together with the National Solidarity Party (NSP), the Pertubuhan Kebangsaan Melayu Singapura (PKMS), and the Singapore Justice Party (SJP), and was its chairman from 2001 to 2011.^[7]

In the 2011 general election, Chiam withdrew the SPP from the SDA grouping, and contested the general election under the SPP banner for the first time since 1997. At the election, Chiam decided not to seek re-election in his Potong Pasir constituency and instead stood as a member of the SPP's team in the Bishan–Toa Payoh GRC.^[8] The SPP was defeated by the PAP's team. His wife Lina Chiam had contested in his former seat but narrowly lost the election in Potong Pasir SMC by 114 votes, and was offered a Non-Constituency Member of Parliament (NCMP) seat, in which she served until 2015.^[9] Chiam was also formerly the longest-serving de facto Opposition Leader in terms of total time served until Low Thia Khiang of the Workers' Party, who surpassed this record in 2018.^[10]

History[]

Chiam was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in London in 1974.^[11] He then joined Philip Wong and Company as a lawyer, before starting his own law firm, Chiam and Company, in 1976.

Political career[]

Independent[]

Chiam first entered politics in 1976 when he contested as an independent candidate in Cairnhill constituency, where he lost to Minister for Communications and National Development Lim Kim San. In the 1979 by-election, Chiam contested the Potong Pasir seat for the first time, again as an independent, and got 33% of the votes against the People Action Party (PAP)'s candidate Howe Yoon Chong.^[4]

Singapore Democratic Party[]

Chiam founded the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) on 6 August 1980, and was the party's Secretary-General until 1993. He contested the Potong Pasir seat again in 1980 and lost to Howe again, but his vote share increased to 41%. In 1984, Chiam contested the seat against Mah Bow Tan, and won with 60.3% of the votes, on a swing of 19 percent against the PAP.^[4]

In 1981, Chiam initiated defamation action against some PAP leaders (S Dhanabalan and Howe Yoon Chong) after they disparaged his professional competence. The PAP leaders agreed to pay damages and to settle the matter without trial.^{[citation needed]}

When Chiam was first elected to Parliament in 1984, he was only the second opposition politician ever to be elected to Singapore's Parliament after J. B. Jeyaretnam of the Workers' Party (WP), in 1981. After Jeyaretnam was expelled from Parliament in 1986, Chiam was Singapore's sole elected opposition MP until 1991, in which two other SDP members, Ling How Doong and Cheo Chai Chen, alongside Low Thia Khiang of the WP were elected, making a total of four opposition MPs, with Chiam effectively the leader of the opposition. At that time of the 1991 election, their party's performance attained its best result (having all nine candidates polled in the top 10), scoring 48.6% of the party's popular vote, including Chiam's best-performing opposition result to date at 69.6%.^[4]

In 1992, Chiam recruited Chee Soon Juan, a psychology lecturer at the National University of Singapore, to be an SDP candidate for a by-election in the Marine Parade Group Representation Constituency. Although the SDP was unsuccessful in the by-election, the recruitment of Chee as a candidate generated considerable public interest. The following year, conflicts between Chiam and Chee emerged after Chee was expelled from his job as a lecturer from NUS for citing about the misuse of funds to pay the courier fees for his wife, and also publicly claimed that he had been the victim of a political vendetta by the governing People's Action Party (PAP).

Chiam wanted to censure Chee for these comments, but the party's Central Executive Committee (CEC) backed Chee. Chiam then resigned as Secretary-General of the party and proceeded to sue the party. The CEC, after convening a disciplinary hearing, voted to expel Chiam from the party (which would have cause himself to lose his Parliamentary seat) after he publicly criticised them. Chiam filed a lawsuit against the SDP and won the court case to prevent them from doing so on procedural grounds.

Singapore People's Party[]

Chiam left the SDP in December 1996 and accepted an invitation to join the Singapore People's Party (which was formed by a breakaway faction of the SDP in 1994) and became its leader. Standing for his new party, he was re-elected as MP for Potong Pasir at the 1997 general election.^[4] Chiam with Low would remained the only two opposition MPs elected at all the subsequent general elections until 2011. At the 2001 general election, Chiam won Potong Pasir for the fifth time. Chiam retired from his law practice in 2002 to become a full-time politician.^{[citation needed]}

At the 2006 general election, he won 55.82% (or 8,245) of the votes to claim his sixth term, defeating PAP's candidate, Sitoh Yih Pin, who got the other 44.18% or 6,527 votes. For many, this was a surprise victory for Chiam, as the PAP had offered an S$80 million upgrading package for the residents of Potong Pasir and had brought in then-Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong to help the PAP's campaign in the constituency.^{[citation needed]}

In early 2008, Chiam suffered a mild stroke^[4] which led to the suspension of his 'Meet-the-People' sessions. In 2011, Chiam said "there's still remnants of the stroke which I suffered".^[12]

In 2009, Chiam celebrated his 25th year as MP for Potong Pasir.^[13] That year, he also announced that he did not plan to stand as a candidate for Potong Pasir at the next general election (due to be held in May 2011), and would instead be a candidate in a Group Representation Constituency (GRC).^[14]

In 2010, Chiam tried to bring the Reform Party into the SDA. He reportedly accepted the conditions the Reform Party set out for joining the alliance, however the terms of entry were opposed by other members of the SDA's Council who blocked the move. In 2010 and early-2011, it was also reported that some members of the SDA's Council felt that Chiam was unable to properly fulfil his role of Chairman of the alliance, after he had cut back his political activities following his stroke in 2008. On 28 February 2011, the SDA's Council voted to relieve Chiam of his role as chairman, however the Council stressed that they still hoped to field Chiam as a candidate at the next general election. But two days later, on 2 March 2011, Chiam announced that the Singapore People's Party was withdrawing from the SDA, and that he would stand under the banner of the SPP instead of the SDA at the next general election.^[15][16]

For the 2011 general election, Chiam's wife, Lina Loh Woon Lee (sometimes referred to as Lina Chiam), the SPP candidate in Potong Pasir. Chiam himself became a candidate in the Bishan–Toa Payoh Group Representation Constituency. Chiam's team in Bishan–Toa Payoh GRC finished with 43% of the votes, and was defeated by the PAP team led by then-Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng. His wife Lina Chiam (Lina Loh) failed to retain his old Potong Pasir seat and was defeated by his opponent in the last two elections, the PAP's Sitoh Yih Pin, by a margin of 114 votes (0.72%). A week later, the Singapore People's Party (SPP) announced that Lina Chiam would accept an offer to become a Non-Constituency Member of Parliament as one of the best-performing losing opposition candidates.

In October 2014, the biography of Chiam, Let the People Have Him, by Loke Hoe Yeong revealed that Chiam's grandfather, Chiam Seng Poh, was a revolutionary who helped Sun Yat-sen overthrow the Qing dynasty. In addition, Let the People Have Him revealed that one of Chiam's maternal aunts, Mabel, married Kwa Soon Siew – a brother of Kwa Geok Choo, the wife of Singapore's first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew.^[17]

On 30 August 2015, Chiam announced that he chose not to stand in the 2015 general election.^[2] At the same election, his party, SPP, lost to PAP again and with WP having the closest result instead of SPP, Lina Chiam was not offered the NCMP position, ending their presence in the parliament after 31 years.

On 4 September 2019, the SPP announced that he would step down from the secretary-general post due to declining health.^[18][19] Chiam stepped down on 16 October 2019.^[1] Steve Chia took his place as SPP's new Secretary-General

Education[]

Career[]

See also[]

• List of Singapore opposition party MPs elected

References[]

External links[]

• Profile at Parliament of Singapore website
• The Straits Times (print edition), 12 December 2009, pp. A38, A39.